


Sentry

by SolarMorrigan



Series: Solar's 007 Fest 2019 [20]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Bullshittery, mentions of kidnapping and injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 19:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19892827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: Tanner has never been so terrified in recent memory, and has no plans to let Q out of his sight possibly ever again





	Sentry

**Author's Note:**

> Day 20! Fills "Fear" on the [Angst Prompt Table](https://mi6cafe.wordpress.com/007-fest/007-fest-2019-prompt-tables/). None of the vague medical knowledge I've accrued over the years is applicable here I just wanted to be dramatic I'm sorry
> 
> Feel free to let me know if you catch any typos

Amidst the beeping and whirring machines stationed around the hospital bed, Tanner was likely the second-quietest thing in the room.

Q was probably the first.

Holding tightly to Q’s hand, Tanner didn’t tap his foot or rustle his jacket against the chair that sounded as though it was stuffed with tissue paper or even dare to breathe too loudly, in case he missed some change in Q’s vital signs. It was silly, he knew; the sound of him sighing wouldn’t override the sound of the heart monitor if Q flatlined.

Not that he was going to, of course. Tanner was just being silly. Silly, silly… and terrified.

He couldn’t recall having been so terrified in recent memory. The destruction of their old office came close, but where his heart had set to beating faster-faster-faster when he’d seen the walls blow out, knowing that this was going to change everything, this time his heart had simply stopped cold in his chest for one beat, two, because he hadn’t known what to do at all.

The fear was still there now, coating Tanner’s ribs like ice, squeezing him, reminding him not to look away from Q’s bruised face, because the last time he let Q out of his sight, _this_ happened.

Again, he was being silly. Q would bristle at the idea that this had happened simply because Tanner hadn’t been there to look after him.

(No, it was double-oh-fucking-five who’d been meant to be looking after Q, and perhaps no one in the service really considered Tanner a threat, but that was simply because they’d never given him reason to _be_ one. 005 would learn. He’d learn as soon as Tanner felt like he could let go of Q’s hand.)

“It’s been ages, Q,” Tanner said quite suddenly into the stillness of the room, nearly startling even himself. “I know I’ve told you to take a lie-in when you can get it, but this is just getting ridiculous.”

Tanner tried to laugh; Q said he liked it when Tanner laughed. He found that he couldn’t quite manage it.

He’d badgered the nurses to the point of strained patience over why Q wasn’t waking yet, until the doctor had come in and explained that Q was stable, but had been sedated for the trip back to London, and would wake in his own time. He’d been through quite a _trauma_ , after all (and besides that, no one trusted Q not to do himself further harm while being flown anywhere).

“Danger’s well through. Normally you’d have hunted down the bastards that did this and seen to their comeuppance by now,” Tanner continued, pausing to clear the rough disuse from his voice. “I used to wonder how much paperwork it would mean for me, but now I just miss that unholy gleam in your eye.”

“D’you mean it?”

Tanner jumped half a foot in his seat, startled by the rasping question that came from the bed. _“Q?”_ he blurted, standing quickly to hover over the man lying beneath the tubes and wires.

Q groaned, brows furrowing as he ventured further into the land of consciousness. “Unfortunately,” he answered, slitting open his left eye—the right still a bit bruise-swollen—to look at Tanner. “‘lo, Bill.”

Tanner did laugh, then, so taken aback and relieved and amused by Q’s characteristically calm reaction (probably aided by the drugs they had him on), that he had to. “Hello, Q,” he said, trying to keep the smile on his face for Q to see.

It didn’t seem to work. “Y’look terrible,” Q murmured with a frown.

“Do I?” Tanner shook his head, reaching out to brush some of Q’s mussed and matted hair away from his face. “Unfortunate we don’t match, then. You look gorgeous.”

A little smirk ticked at the corner of Q’s mouth, then. “Liar,” he accused. “Wha’s wrong?”

Tanner shook his head, taking hold of Q’s hand again. “Had a bit of a shock, you know. I didn’t realize I was dating a field agent.”

Slowly, Q curled clumsy fingers around Tanner’s. “Mm. Was thinking of applying for double-oh status. Y’think I should?”

“I don’t think my heart could take it,” Tanner replied with great honestly.

Q hummed again. “Best not, then.”

“Best not,” Tanner echoed faintly.

There was silence but for the noise of the machines for a moment, before Q spoke again. “‘m not dying, am I?”

“What? No!” Tanner rebuffed the question with a little more force than he meant to. “You’re _fine.”_

Q’s brow twitched, as if he was trying to affect a sarcastic expression but couldn’t quite manage it. That was fair, considering how much of him was covered in bruises or bandages.

“You’ll _be_ fine,” Tanner amended.

“You _look_ like ‘m gonna die. Wha’s wrong, Bill?” Q pressed, awfully persistent for a man who’d been captured, beaten, shot, rescued, and drugged to the gills.

Pointing out the obvious— _you were taken, you were hurt_ —wouldn’t cut it, Tanner knew. Even when Q wasn’t at his best, his questions demanded an answer to the very root of the problem and nothing less. Tanner closed his eyes, still clutching Q’s hand in his own, probably tighter than was comfortable for Q.

“We didn’t know what happened, or where you were. Just that you’d been taken. And the thought that– that you might have been–” Tanner shook his head, the rest coming out hushed, “I’ve never been more terrified.”

Silence again, broken into sections by the steady pulse of the heart monitor, and then Q tugged at Tanner’s hand. Tanner opened his eyes to find Q staring at him very intently, considering he only had one eye and poor depth perception with which to do it.

“C’mere,” Q demanded, and Tanner couldn’t help but oblige.

Gingerly, he sat on the edge of the bed, careful to avoid wires and tubes and any limbs he might jostle.

“I’m on a lot of drugs, I think, because I can’t feel much,” Q enunciated carefully, “but there’re no doctors swarming the room, so I’m probably going to be fine. I’m here, and I’m safe. I know I am, because you’re here.”

It was ridiculous; Q wasn’t meant to be the one comforting _Tanner_ , it should have been the other way ‘round, and yet he could feel some of the vicious fear melting away from his chest under the force of Q’s hazy affection and reassurance.

“You will be fine,” Tanner said, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to Q’s forehead, “and I’ll stay to make sure of it. You should get some rest.”

“Mm… y’ll be here?” Q checked, even as his eye slipped shut.

“I’ll be right here,” Tanner promised.

Not a force on Earth would have pulled him away, and he stayed put on the edge of the bed, keeping watch well after Q had fallen back into a heavy sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on [Tumblr](https://solarmorrigan.tumblr.com/post/186437699223/sentry-james-bond-tannerq-day-20), where the Fest is STILL HAPPENING AND WE ARE ALL SO TIRED or maybe that's just me


End file.
